1. Technical Field
This invention relates to lawn mowers having detachable tool heads and, more particularly, to multi-functional tool head locking and adjusting mechanisms for lawn mowers.
2. Prior Art
At the present time, home owners who must cut their lawns, rake leaves, till soil, and shovel snow may purchase separate machines for each of these tasks. No one machine will perform all four tasks or even adequately perform any two of the tasks. Some lawn mowers will pick up some of the debris on a lawn, but they are not able to pick up debris embedded in the lawn. For functional convenience all lines of equipment are often provided with their own power source, and thus present a substantial duplication in cost and storage.
Some attempts have been made in the prior art to solve this problem. One prior art example shows a shearing attachment conformed for selectively engaging the lower edge of a snow blower including a set of toothed blades reciprocated relative each other. The reciprocal power may be derived from the forward motive power of the blower, conforming the blower for lawn growth cutting. Unfortunately, such an arrangement does not provide any means of removing snow from a lawn, or for tilling hardened and/or poorly aerated soil.
Another prior art example shows a multi-use lawn care machine which can be used as a lawn mower, lawn sweeper or snow blower. The machine has a generally cylindrical housing to hold the tool (a snow blower reel, lawn mower reel, or lawn sweeper attachment) in use. Such a machine, however, is rather bulky in design, making it difficult to maneuver and transport between remote locations. Furthermore, as mentioned herein above, the present device also lacks the ability to effectively till and aerate soil.
Accordingly, a need remains for multi-functional tool heads for lawn mowers and like equipment in order to overcome the above-noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing multi-functional tool heads that are easy to interchange and use, is compact and portable in design, is versatile in its applications, and requires much less storage space than a multitude of separate machines. Such multi-functional tool heads advantageously allows a user to properly care for their lawn and the remainder of their property without having to purchase multiple expensive machines for each task. The multi-functional tool heads for lawn mowers and like equipment can also easily be used by homeowners caring for their own lawns, or by professional landscapers tending to a contracted property.